In what may be the first bit of good news in a while for Northern California, rain could be on the way by the end of this week. It could put the kibosh on the Camp Fire, ending one chapter of the deadliest and most destructive fire in California’s history. Unfortunately it won’t be all good news as the rain could…

After not experiencing any meaningful amounts of precipitation for at least 500 years, Chile’s Atacama Desert is finally getting some rain. Quite unexpectedly, however, these rains—instead of fostering life—are doing the exact opposite.

Webcomics aren’t a novelty. Nor are they this up-and-coming thing I “have to tell you about.” They are part of the cultural pantheon, the nerdy landscape—launching successful careers, conventions, and memes that have adorned everything from t-shirts to energy drinks. But sometimes, even when a comics genre is known,…

It’s been less than two months since mudslides tore through Southern California’s Santa Barbara County, killing 21 people and destroying at least 100 homes. Now, Montecito and Carpinteria, small coastal towns that suffered the bulk of that devastation, are under new evacuation orders as a strong rains are forecast.

When it rains it mudslides. That, at least, is the saying in California this week, as the aftermath of one of the state’s worst fire seasons converges with some of the state’s first big rains in nearly a year.

The Caspian Sea is about as strange as a body of water gets. Its surface still sits 27.5 meters (90 feet) below sea level, and water doesn’t flow out of it—it’s isolated from the oceans, and relies on a series of Asian rivers to maintain its levels.

California governor Jerry Brown recently declared an end to the state of emergency brought on by his state’s historically terrible drought. It’s a mid-level miracle, assisted by record rainfall earlier this year. If you don’t believe me, just look at these before and after images.

The Pineapple Express has been wreaking havoc across much of California over the past few months, delivering unusually high amounts of rain and threatening the state with floods and landslides. A dramatic new satellite image shows this “atmospheric river” as it extends from Hawaii to the US West Coast.

To prevent massive dams from overflowing when heavy rains cause water levels to rise, spillways like this are used to drain water to the stream below. Without a true sense of scale, it looks just like the drain in your bathtub, but from a drone’s bird’s eye view, the opening to this spillway looks more like a black…

I like rain. I mean, I don’t like it when I get dumped on with cloud piss to the point where my socks will never be dry again and my soul has darkened, but I like it when I’m inside and warm, when I can hear the pitter-patter and put it in the background—when I can see it and not feel it at all. This video of rain by …

Ever imagine a movie scene where Gene Kelly is singing in the rain while Neo and Agent Smith fight and Spider-Man does his upside down kiss with Mary Jane? What about if Tony Leung from The Grandmaster, Jet Li from Lethal Weapon 4, T-Rex from Jurassic Park, and replicant Roy Batty from Blade Runner all make an…

How many thousands of ants do you think are in this floating ant raft? I mean, the size of it is just ridiculous and there’s more ants clumped up in balls on top of the raft too. Ants have been known to link their legs and mouths with each other to create these sort of ant rafts during flooding but this one is more…

A huge storm drenched Phoenix and flooded the streets earlier this week. That’s already bizarre, but the weirdest thing to come out of that storm that happens once a century in the desert is this floating manhole cover. The 150-pound metal plate looks like it’s kind of dancing? Or at least, it’s bouncing around the…

Last week’s flooding in France saw rivers reach their highest levels in 50 years, forcing the Louvre to move its art away from rising waters. After the floods caused 18 deaths and nearly one billion Euros in damage, French President Francois Hollande made a statement urging his country to take stronger action against…

Over the last few days heavy flooding across France, Austria, and Germany has resulted in some scary photos, including surreal images of the Seine spilling over its banks in Paris. The river is getting a little too close for comfort for the Louvre, which is relocating some of its art.

It sounds like the plot of a summer blockbuster, but the United Arab Emirates is apparently quite serious about building a mountain to increase rainfall in the region. Would it work? Probably. But instead of launching an infrastructure project where a very rich country attempts to dig its way out of a drought, the UAE…

Mother Nature probably never wanted to wax a song about fire and water but when fracking gets involved, all sorts of wild stuff starts happening. This footage apparently shows a gas leak in a river near a fracking site in Australia. There’s so much gas bubbling up that it easily catches on fire and sustains the flames…

Historic flooding—called “biblical” by almost every news organization—has paralyzed southeast Texas, evacuating neighborhoods, cancelling flights, and closing schools. The heaviest rain fell around Houston, where some areas saw 24-hour rainfall totals of up to 17 inches. At least seven people have died due to…

Don’t be too quick to thank El Niño for the last wave of storms that blessed the West Coast with swamped reservoirs, replenished snowpack, and spectacular flaming palm trees. Turns out that El Niño had a little help—precipitation was increased by an estimated 15 percent thanks to cloud-seeding.